This invention relates to stents which are implanted in the body.
Stents are used in body lumens, such as blood vessels to maintain them in an open condition. Typically, the stent is delivered into the lumen by a catheter that supports the stent in a compact form during percutaneous insertion and transport through a lumen, such as a vessel, to the desired implantation site. Upon reaching the site the stent is expanded so that it engages the interior wall of the vessel. The catheter is then removed, leaving the stent in the body.
The expansion of the stent may involve forcing it to expand radially outwardly as by inflation of a balloon carried by the catheter or the stent may be of a self-expanding type, several of which are known in the art. For example, the stent may be made of a memory metal such as NITINOL which self-expands in selected temperature ranges.
It can be readily seen that the more flexible the stent is during percutaneous insertion the more easily it can negotiate bends and curves in the lumen or vessel to reach the implantation site.